Building Blocks
by aethra
Summary: NiCo. Just a fragment of the story.


A/N: This is scene that just would not leave me alone. The idea came to me during the scene where Courtney and Nikolas had dinner together in the Bahamas and she watched him play with his food. It should take place somewhere in the middle of a story that I have not written. Some background info - Courtney is in the middle of a difficult pregnancy, Nikolas is the father, not Jax. Courtney and Nikolas have gone away together to that Greek island for the duration of the pregnancy.

Building Blocks

Courtney let out a long sigh, staring out her window at the waves crashing on the rocks below. She couldn't deny that the view was gorgeous but today she was too bored to truly enjoy it. Her doctor had ordered complete bed rest two months ago and she had complied willingly, she knew what was at stake. But after two months even the most beautiful view from the most comfortable bed grew boring. Courtney smiled as she heard a familiar voice outside her door - Nikolas. He spent most of his time here talking to her, entertaining her, seeing that she had everything she might want or need. Evidently this time he came bearing gifts. "What's this?" Courtney asked seeing the package in his hands.

"I don't know," Nikolas responded. "It's addressed to you, but this isn't anything that I ordered."

Courtney took the large box from his hands and rested it on her lap as she tilted it so that she could see the address over the mound of her belly. She recognized it at once and her whole face brightened, "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I didn't think that they would come so soon. I only placed the order last week."

Nikolas smiled at the pleasure in her eyes and came to sit on the edge of the bed next to her, "What did you order? You know you only had to ask and I would have gotten whatever it is for you, you didn't have to wait for anything to be delivered."

"I know," Courtney answered, "but this isn't for me. It's for you, and I wanted it to be a surprise."

"For me?" Nikolas couldn't hide his surprise as he accepted the package back from her hands. He couldn't remember the last time someone had given him a present for no reason. Lucky and Emily never forgot his birthday or Christmas, but he had never been given spontaneous gifts. "I - I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything, just open it." Courtney answered him still smiling.

Seeing the impatience in Courtney's eyes Nikolas couldn't resist teasing her. He opened the package as slowly as possible, watching her eyes instead of what he was doing as he loosened the flaps on one end of the box. He worked one hand into the box, dislodging the foam peanuts that shielded the item inside. At last, he encountered the item inside and wrapped his fingers around the corner of another box pulling it out and allowing more of the foam peanuts to spill out of the box onto the bed and the floor. He watched her watch him pull her gift from the box. He saw the moment that her excitement changed to nervous tension and the just before his prize came loose from the box she reached out her hand and caught his wrist, halting his progress. "Wait," she whispered, flushing.

He paused and when her gaze finally met his own he raised a single eyebrow without speaking and waited for her to explain. "Before you see it I just want to say, it's sort silly, ok? And if you don't like it or think it's stupid that's alright. I just - oh go ahead," she broke off releasing his wrist and squeezing her eyes shut as he turned his attention to the package in his lap.

Freeing the box from its packaging at last he let the outer materials fall to the floor as he examined the container in his hands. "Lincoln Logs?" he asked in confusion.

Her hands covering her scarlet face, Courtney peeked out from between her fingers. "I know, dumb right? It's just - I had a set when I was a kid and I loved them. And then I was watching you the other night at dinner, you were doing that thing with your vegetables, you know, and I - it made me think about these. I want - Nikolas, whatever happens I know that you are going to be a wonderful father. And I thought, maybe, you could use these when you teach our child to build."

As she spoke, Nikolas looked back at the box in his hands seeing the resemblance between the log fort on the cover and the little vegetable forts he had been building all of his life. He remembered the first time he had explained that habit to Courtney, when they had dinner together in the Bahamas:

"_I've been building these little forts out of vegetables since I can remember. I have. My uncle, he wouldn't buy me those plastic building sets," he had said_

_When she asked 'why not' he had explained, "Too common, I guess. You know, I was supposed to own the company and the buildings and the land. I wasn't -- I wasn't supposed to actually create something with my own hands, you know?" _

Courtney knew how nervous he still was about his ability to be a good father, how he feared his Cassadine upbringing had poisoned him, but she hadn't said anything about it. She wasn't trying to argue him out of his fear; she had found a more direct way to address it. With this toy, she was showing him how he could be different from Stefan. He could love and teach this child, and at the same time, he could let him be a child, let him play and build and find his own path in life. He could give that to his child.

Blinking back tears Nikolas bent to kiss Courtney, cutting off her stuttered explanations. "This is, without a doubt, the best gift anyone had ever given me," he said smiling. Then before the moment could become too emotional he broke the tension by ripping open the box with all the impatience that he had contained when he opened the package containing it. "But if I'm to teach our child how to build, you're going to have to teach me first," he said dumping the contents of the box onto her lap.


End file.
